Avnet's Market Connection Focuses On What's Hot

Avnet Hall-Mark has created a program designed to help Hewlett-Packard solution providers ensure what they are selling equates to what end users are actually buying.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based distributor's Market Connection program offers sales, technical and marketing resources in areas considered most likely to generate a sale. For example, the first series is focused on open-systems platform migrations because Avnet, HP and researchers believe enterprises are interested in spending in that area. In the next few months, Avnet will introduce programs for regulatory compliance and information lifecycle management, according to Eileen Gibson, vice president of HP customer marketing at Avnet Hall-Mark.

"Our objective is to bring home the opportunity that is the hot topic in the market from an information perspective. Another objective is lower barrier to entry to bring those solutions to market," Gibson said. "It's incumbent upon us in partnership with HP to show the end user's 'what's in it for me?' thinking to the reseller so they will invest with HP in a particular market opportunity."

About 160 solution providers registered for a recent Webinar on open-systems migration.

Avnet Hall-Mark hired two IDC analysts to explain how end users are looking to migrate operating environments. Topics included what application workloads work best with each operating environment and what were the total costs for each solution.

"We're saying to resellers that standards-based computing is here. There is ample opportunity because workloads are shifting from Unix to other operating environments. Certain workloads will stay on Unix, but people are shifting to Linux for other applications.

The program is designed to inform resellers about the immediate market opportunity, outline HP solution sets, develop a business plan, deliver sales training, marketing and lead-generation programs to build a pipeline, and provide implementation services.

"We're looking at a cradle-to-grave approach," Gibson said. "There are a lot of steps in between, but getting from A to Z is critical for resellers. We are showing them from having a clear line of sight why should we be in here to how to get resources quickly, through the sales cycle and finally how to provide the solution on a repeatable basis."